This new documentary by the father-and-son directing team of Daniel and Emmanuel Leconte pays tribute to the 11 journalists of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo who were killed in the January 2015 attack by radical Islamic extremists.

Je suis Charlie

Daniel Leconte, Emmanuel Leconte

The January 2015 attacks on the offices
of the French satirical magazine Charlie
Hebdo were appalling in their brutality. But
they were not a singular event. In the next
two days, eight more people were killed in
four separate incidents, one of them involving
a Jewish grocery store. In total, twenty
people were killed. Paris, and much of the
world, was in shock. But the events galvanized
a country and fostered a spontaneous
outburst of collective outrage as millions
gathered in the streets of French cities (and
thousands more in Europe and North and
South America), to protest the attacks.

Emmanuel and Daniel Leconte's film is
a document of the social upheaval that followed,
as seen through television footage as
well as the filmmakers' own cameras. In this
sense, Je suis Charlie is a public record; but
its true power lies within the interviews the
Lecontes collect from both before and after
the assault on the Charlie Hebdo journalists.

Much of the film is devoted to creating
a portrait of the magazine and the people
behind it. Footage from over the years with
key contributors who were later murdered,
among them editor Charb and cartoonist
Cabu, conveys a direct sense of the
magazine's personality and vision. Other
interviews feature those who survived the
attack — and watched as the two gunmen
killed their friends.

The Lecontes also film writers, philosophers,
editors, and politicians discussing
their notions of freedom of expression and
how France reacted to the crisis. We also see
the remaining editorial staff as they work to
produce their first post-attack issue, which
went on to sell seven million copies. Je suis
Charlie is highly moving, yet it will inspire
examination of the complex issues that this
magazine raises.